According to the caption for this photo, the building with the arches at 5610 Hollywood Blvd, housed the Edith Jane School of Dancing. It was also known as the Falcon School, but I prefer the first name. The picture is circa 1937, when Shirley Temple was at the peak of her fame, so I’m picturing the Edith Jane School of Dancing filled with tap-dancing moppets and their stage-mother parents as Miss Edith Jane looks on with horror knowing there was really only one Shirley Temple and the studios had discovered her already. I don’t know who was in the neighboring building, but I do love their Art Deco tower. (Source: Calisphere)
Bill H. said: “The building with the tower opened as a California Bank, a Parkinson & Parkinson designed landmark structure in 1929.”
Thanks to Martin P. here are a couple of photos of the tower. This first one shows how it looked after the Northridge earthquake in 1994:
And this one shows how it appeared in LA Confidential (1997)
You can learn more about Edith Jane and her dancing school here.
Imagine my surprise to find that tower is still with us. This is roughly how that view looked in December 2024.
In the ’94 quake, the cupola of that tower jumped up, turned upside down, and landed in place
I remember seeing that later on when I and a couple others went…earthquake damage sightseeing.
Really? That’s so amazing that it sounds like a scene from a ridiculous 1980s comedy!
Your remark made me laugh out loud! I can see your point.
Erp! I’m wrong (but that’s how I remember it). It jumps dup and landed sideways
https://tinyurl.com/2sw6r75m
https://tinyurl.com/2sw6r75m
It’s still amazing!
The building with the tower was dressed as a movie theatre premiere in L.A. CONFIDENTIAL. The “Movie Premiere Pot Bust” scenes which take place on Gramercy Place, the street that t-bones Hollywood Blvd. at that building.
Thanks, Martin. Not far from my old neighborhood on Hollywood and Vine. That’s near Thai Town. The tower, architecturally, resembled a mini version of LA City Hall. Just beautiful. By the way, the photo which I have seen before, because I love vintage cars (catch the Ford Woody station wagon in front of the school), was taken by Herman Schultheis, famous annimator for Disney, He came to LA in the 30s from Europe. The story goes he disappeared in Guatemala doing film work out there, later they found his remains. Schultheis left a collection of vintage LA photos. The car parked on the right side of the photo could be his! Who knows?
Lived on the street in ‘68-‘69 and saw that view daily. To Spacey’s right was a major church structure where they filmed the wedding scene interiors of How To Commit A Marriage with Hope/Gleason/Wyman et al. It was the last Hollywood film that Bob ever made, unfortunately a bomb at the time.